Ono no Komachi: My Translations to English

Contemplating Death and Cremation

Sad to end as just

a green haze drifting pale

over distant fields.

Falling, the long rain,

the color from the flower,

the eye through the world.

I'm as happy with this translation of Komachi as a poem in English as I am with any of mine.  I wrote it after reading two or three other translations.  One of them--Rexroth's?--had something about the watching eye falling through the world.  As I read more translations and commentaries, there was nothing else much like it.  So thought perhaps my version drew on a rather dubious source.  However, I've just found that the Japanese word nagame, here translated as "long rain," can also mean "to watch."  So--dubious no more, and I'm happy again. 

Should the stream whisper come,

like a severed reed,

I would float away,

adrift as my heart.

Moonlight pouring through the trees

fills me up with autumn.

HITOMARU: My Translations to English

Not combing my morning hair,

so lately pillowed in his hand.

Dim in the mist of morning

off the shore of Akashi:

the island hiding the boat

upon which sail all my thoughts.

Walking past my door

unglancing: how she tells me

so then, die of love.

Du Fu: My Translations to English 杜甫

 THOUGHTS OF THE NIGHT TRAVELLER

Slender grass in the shore breeze.

Tall mast on a lonely boat.

Stars sink over spreading fields.

The moon rides on the river.

Too old and sick for office--

and will scribblings make my name?

Drifting, drifting, what am I?

One gull between earth and sky.


旅夜书怀

细草微风岸
危墙独夜舟
星垂平野阔
月涌大江流
名岂文章著
官应老病休
飘飘何所似
天地一沙鸥


lǚ yè shū huái

xì cǎo wēi fēng àn
wēi qiáng dú yè zhōu
xīng chuí píng yě kuò
yuè yǒng dà jiāng liú
míng qǐ wén zhāng zhù
guān yìng lǎo bìng xiū
piāo piāo hé suǒ sì
tiān dì yī shā ōu

MOONLIT NIGHT

Just now, alone in our room,

you gaze at the Fuzhou moon.

Our children--I ache for them

from far away--they don't see

why you brood upon Changan.

Fragrant fog scents your gathered hair.

Lustrous moon chills your slender arms.

When, between the gauzy curtains,

will we lean together again,

these tears dried on our faces,

their traces limned in moonlight?


月夜                                

今夜鄜州月
闺中只独看
遥怜小儿女
未解忆长安
香雾云鬟湿
清辉玉臂寒
何时倚虚幌
双照泪痕干


yuè yè

jīn yè fū zhōu yuè
guī zhōng zhǐ dú kān
yáo lián xiǎo ér nǚ
wèi jiě yì cháng ān
xiāng wù yún huán shī
qīng huī yù bì hán
hé shí yǐ xū huǎng
shuāng zhào lèi hén gān




SPRING PROSPECT

The nation in ruins,

mountains and rivers remain.

The city in spring's

deep in grass and trees.

My tears at the passing days

fall as dew from the flowers.

Embittered by separation,

I startle at birdsong.

Beacon fires have blazed

for all these three months.

For a letter from home

I'd give ten thousand in gold.

I've pulled so at my white hair

my hatpin hardly holds.

--Du Fu

Thanks to Joel Lipman, the poet laureate of Lucas County, for the suggestion to separate the couplets. Helps to break up the clunkiness, in English, of always-endstopped lines.

Another Version:

The nation in ruin,

mountains and rivers remain.

The city in spring,

deep in grass and trees.

Lost in wretched times,

weeping over flowers.

Sunk in loneliness,

startling at birdsong.

Beacon fires,

burning for three months.

Family letters,

worth thousands in gold.

I've pulled so at my white hair

that my hatpin barely holds.


春望

国破山河在
城春草木深
感时花溅泪
恨别鸟惊心
烽火连三月
家书抵万金
白头搔更短
浑欲不胜簪


chūn wàng

guó pò shān hé zài
chéng chūn cǎo mù shēn
gǎn shí huā jiàn lèi
hèn bié niǎo jīng xīn
fēng huǒ lián sān yuè
jiā shū dǐ wàn jīn
bái tóu sāo gèng duǎn
hún yù bù shēng zān

On the River I Saw the Water Surging like the Ocean:  A Sketchy Account

I have always been a little off,

      so driven by love of well-made verse,

pursuing that word of startling rightness,

      I'd sooner die than rest.

In my reckless old age,

      my words and I overwhelm each other.

So you needn't fear, birds and flowers,

     for the secrets of your spring.

Just now, I've put in a pier

      to dangle a fishing line from.

Before, I was angling from an anchored raft

      in place of a boat.

Who could I get with the mind of a master

      like Tao or Xie

to help out with my writing

      and wander the nearby world with me?

--Du Fu

Birds are whiter on the blue river.

Flowers flame up on the green mountain.

Spring, I see, has come and gone again.

What day--what year--will I return home?

Wang Wei: My Translations to English

RETURNING TO MOUNT SONG

Trees flanking the clear stream.

My cart horse ambling on.

Flowing water knows how I feel.

Evening birds come home with me.

Empty town above the old ferry.

Setting sun filling the autumn hills.

Far away from the outside world,

returned to the foot of the mountain.

    --Wang Wei

Alt:  back home at the foot of the mountain.

Tai Yi, the Cenral Peak of Zhongnan Mountain

Zhongnan near the imperial city:
height upon height right down to the sea.
Look back at white clouds, they're all one.
Enter the green haze, it's all gone.
From the middle peak, the land shapes change.
Sun and shade no valley dapple the same.
Hoping for a human place for the night,
call to that woodsman across the water.

Separation Sickness

Red beans of the longing tree grow there in the south.   

Come the spring, the branches bush out and fill with seeds.   

I hope, friend, that you will pick more and more and more   

of what is the best thing for this illness of ours. 

     

alt:  of what is the simple for this illness of ours.

王維

相思

紅(Red)豆(Bean)生(Born/Grow)南(South)國(Country)，

春(Spring)來(Come)發(Produce)幾(How Many)枝(Branch)。

願(Wish)君(You)多(Much)采(Pluck)擷(Pick)，

此(This)物(Item/Thing)最(Most)相(To)思(Think)。

相思: (combination of these two character means Lovesickness)

     --word for word translation by Laijon Liu

White stones stick up from Bramble Brook.

Red leaves sparse against a cold sky.

No rain now on the mountain path.

My clothes wet from the high green brush.

--Wang Wei

PASSING THE TEMPLE OF TEEMING FRAGRANCE

The Temple of Teeming Fragrance

measureless miles in summit clouds.

Ancient forest, a pathless way.

Deep mountains, directionless bell.

Spring water over jagged rocks.

Yellow sun on cool green pines.

Twilight, winding pool.  Quiet sitting

uncoils the poison dragon of the heart.

     --Wang Wei, my tr.

Monks make incense at the Temple of Teeming Fragrance.






MAGNOLIA ENCLOSURE


Autumn hills gather waning light.
Back and forth, birds chase through the air.
All things green are suddenly bright.
At sunset, mists are here, then there.
 



XINYI VILLAGE


Limbs, branches, hibiscus flowers.
Throughout the hills, their red calyces.
House by the stream, stillness, and no one.
All around, all blooming and falling.




RILL BY THE HOUSE OF THE LUANS


Hard wind blows through autumn rain.
Shallow rills flow over rocks.
Water beads splash against each other.
White egret starts, then settles back.

DEER FENCE

Empty Mountain.
Seeing no one.
Hearing someone's
echoing voice.
The late day sun
enters again
the deep forest,
shining once more
on the green moss.
--Wang Wei, my tr.

In my old age, I want only peace.

The ten thousand things are not my concern.

I've no plan for the rest of my life

but to come back to this, my ancient woods.

Piney wind blows my girdle open.

Mountain moon lights upon the lute I play.

So where's the warp and weft of the world?

Fishermen's songs come far up the inlet.

--Wang Wei, my tr.

Surely you can say,
having come from my village,
if the winter plum
has already blossomed there
by the filigreed window.




SITTING ALONE ON AN AUTUMN NIGHT


Alone, grieving over my graying hair.
In the empty hall, nearly nine o'clock.
Mountain fruit fall in heavy rain.
Grasshoppers sing in my lamplight.
Hair gone white can never go back.
Nothing can change to yellow gold.
Want to cast off age and illness?
You need to study not being born.

Some translators have "no rebirth" in the last line for what is most literally "no-birth."  But I think that with Wang Wei's Buddhism being the Dao-tinged Buddhism of Zen, he wouldn't have been so concerned with reincarnation.  Perhaps the the reference would have been more to the illusion of self, of ego, of something that came into being at a certain time and persisted in its essence all through one's life.  To not hang on to that illusion.

AUTUMN EVENING, MOUNTAIN LODGE


Empty mountain, just after rain.
Evening air, the air of autumn.
The bright moon shines through the trees.
A clear spring flows over stones.
Bamboo rustles, washergirls return.
Lotus leaves sway, fishing boats glide by.
Sweet grass of spring withers as it will.
Noble friends, of course we should stay!

Wang Wei was a painter as well.                                                                

Japanese Poems of the Heian Period and Before: My Translations to English

Now out of the dark
onto the path of darkness
unwilling I go.

Linger to shine on me, moon,
poised at the rim of the hill.
    --Izumi Shikibu

Only for you, lord,

am I out here in spring fields,

pulling early greens,

with snow falling

thick on my sleeves.

  --Emperor Koko

君がため
春の野に出でて
若菜つむ
わが衣手に
雪はふりつつ

kimi ga tame haru no no ni idete wakana tsumu waga koromode ni yuki wa furi tsutsu 

Almost showed you plum blossoms

that were a light fall of snow.

--Akahito

How few the moments

that my gaze has lit upon

the flowers of spring.

How many the months and days

that I have passed without fruit.

--Fujiwara no Okikase

The sea slips from the shore.

One white wave again stands fast.

A crane in the surf.

--The Emperor Uda

Destinations unknown,

two ships that left harbor

side by side, now diverge.

--Saigyo Hoshi

Before the dubious shrine

I stand dumbstruck and crying.

--Saigyo Hoshi

This world, I try not to see,

still dogs me like a shadow.

--Minamoto no Toshiyori

...to be in this world

the seagull sleeping alone

on the tossing sea...

--Tagaya Masahiro

Leaves fall on the roof,

blurring the silence of night

and the sound of rain.

--Minamoto no Yorizane

Rising and falling, waves

scour the moon in the sea,

effacing nothing.

--Kiyowara Fukayabu

Between the eternals,

the unmoving mountains

and incontinent seas,

we are flowers, quickest

among fleeting flowers.

--Anon.

Long into summer nights

when I think at last of bed

the dawn cuckoo sings

--Tsurayuki



Spring, and a girl is walking
a path in peach blossom light.
     --Otomo no Yakamochi

Foam on the water

I am, that still wants to live

for a thousand years.

--Otomo no Yakamochi

To an empty land

she and I would go and live

alone together.

--Otomo no Yakamochi

Sad to meet in dreams:

My hand reaches out to you

and flounders awake.

--Otomo no Yakamochi

Should we never meet,

and entwine,  threads making cord,

now this way, now that,

upon what line shall I string

all the jewels of my life?

--Sakanoe Korenori

Yes, she may not think of me

not ever forgetting her.

--Anon.

Plum trees bloom again.

Empty as a locust shell,

my own springless world.

--Anon.

Love without requite:

a prayer in the temple

behind a starving god.

--Lady Kasa

But by its own call

on the evergreen mountain

the deer knows the fall.

--Onakatomi Yoshinobu

Unmistakably

even here, far south in Tsu,

winter's come at last

to my cottage, hidden down

in a blanket of rushes.

--Minamoto no Shigeyuki

That this day too comes

to dusk:  more clear with each note

of the temple bell.

--Anon.

Unbearably cold,

sanderlings cried in the wind

across the river

the night I went to see her

whom I loved beyond bearing.

--Tsurayuki

Short as a segment

of Naniwa marsh reed,

not even that much

time for us to meet again

on the long passage, is there?

    --Lady Ise

 難波潟 

みじかき芦の
ふしのまも
あはでこの世を
過ぐしてよとや

Naniwa gata mijikaki ashi no fushi no ma mo awade kono yo o sugushite yo to ya